The Magnes: A new cultural institution is unveiled in Berkeley [Photos]

The museum's 1920s façade with its Art Deco-style features and warm brick color makes for a vibrant addition to downtown Berkeley at night. Photo: Ira Serkes

On Sunday, the doors will open to a new cultural institution in Berkeley. The many thousands of books, paintings, prints, textiles, and photographs that make up The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art & Life – which was formerly located in an early 20th-century family home on Russell Street in the Elmwood neighborhood — will now be readily accessible to the public in a beautifully renovated, centrally located 25,000 sq ft space at 2121 Allston Way.

DSC_0055

The heart of the new museum is an open exhibition space featuring elm wood and glass, transparency and warmth being key to the space's design. Photo: Tracey Taylor

The building, which was designed in the 1920s as a printing plant for UC Berkeley, was most recently used by UC’s Bancroft Library, with whom the Magnes now partners. Before that, the Berkeley Public Library occupied the space. Marks left by book stacks on the stained, maple-colored concrete floors bear the stamp of the building’s history.